Chosen Books

Invited designers and commentators have chosen these as the books that inspire them and that have shaped their worldview or their ideas about design.

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2000 books

Life: A User’s Manual Georges Perec On Jasper Morrison’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A Life of Picasso (3 vols.) John Richardson On Richard Meier’s Book List On Alexa Hampton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Life and Work of John Nash, Architect John Summerson On Alexander Cooper’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer Erwin Panofsky On Michael Maharam’s Book List Add to My Reading List	L’Ideologia del Traditore (The Ideology of the Traitor: Art, Manner and Mannerism) Achille Bonito Oliva On Stefano Giovannoni’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Libraries Candida Hofer et al. On Sou Fujimoto’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Levittowners Herbert J. Gans On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Letters to Clients Frank Lloyd Wright On Craig Hodgetts’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Letters to a Young Poet Rainer Maria Rilke On Juhani Pallasmaa’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh Vincent van Gogh On Daniel Libeskind’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Letters of Mozart & His Family (3 vols.) Emily Anderson, ed. On Massimo Vignelli’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Letter and Image Robert Massin On Paula Scher’s Book List On Kit Hinrichs’s Book List On Tom Geismar’s Book List On Rick Poynor’s Book List On Warren Lehrer’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Let the Great World Spin Collum McCann On Tod Williams’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Le système des objets (The System of Objects) Jean Baudrillard On Alberto Alessi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Le Style Louis XVI Philippe Julian On Alexa Hampton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Lester Beall R. Roger Remington On Carin Goldberg’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Less Than One Joseph Brodsky On Juhani Pallasmaa’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams Suntory Museum, ed. On Erik Spiekermann’s Book List Add to My Reading List	L’esperienza musicale e l’estetica Massimo Mila On Massimo Vignelli’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Les contes du chat perché Marcel Aymé On Pierre Bernard’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Les choses: Une histoire des années soixante (Things: A Story of the Sixties) Georges Perec On Pierre Bernard’s Book List On Matali Crasset’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Les styles Philippe Jullian On Christian Lacroix’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Les Réussites de la Décoration Française 1950–1960 Thomas Kernan On Alexa Hampton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Les Dix Livres d’Architecture de Vitruve, 2nd edition (Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture) Claude Perrault On Peter Pennoyer’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Les Décorateurs des années 40 Bruno Foucart et al. On Ernest de la Torre’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Les Créateurs du temps Kazuyuki Takahashi On Richard Sachs’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Les Années “25” Yvonne Brunhammer On R. Craig Miller’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Leopard (Il gattopardo) Giuseppe Di Lampedusa et al. On Alexander Cooper’s Book List On Cleto Munari’s Book List On Jorge Silvetti’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper Leo Steinberg On Milton Glaser’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Legibility: A Typographic Book of Etiquette Ernst Reichl Add to My Reading List	Legendary Decorators of the Twentieth Century Mark Hampton On Alexa Hampton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Left Handed, Son of Old Man Hat Left Handed et al. On Antoine Predock’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Le Corbusier: Oeuvre Complète (Complete Works) Willy Boesiger, ed. On Emilio Ambasz’s Book List On Norman Foster’s Book List On William Georgis’s Book List On Massimo Vignelli’s Book List On Cesar Pelli’s Book List On James Biber’s Book List On Michael Manfredi’s Book List On Mels Crouwel’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman On Phyllis Lambert’s Book List On Daniel Libeskind’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Learning from Las Vegas Robert Venturi et al. On Michael Bierut’s Book List On Andrés Duany’s Book List On R. Craig Miller’s Book List On Zoë Ryan’s Book List On Ellen Lupton’s Book List On list of Books by Denise Scott Brown On list of Books by Robert Venturi On Rudy VanderLans’s Book List On Nathalie de Vries’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Learning from Hangzhou Mathieu Borysevicz On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Le vin en question (Wine in Question) Jules Chauvet On Matali Crasset’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Le vertige Patrick Mauriès On Christian Lacroix’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Le rivage des Syrtes (The Opposing Shore) Julien Gracq On Christian Lacroix’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Le passé défini Jean Cocteau On Christian Lacroix’s Book List Add to My Reading List

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Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

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Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

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Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

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Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

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